Rockbox Technical Forums

Installation / Removal => Rockbox Utility => Topic started by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 06:42:24 AM

Title: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 06:42:24 AM
I am a total NOOB at this, so keep that in mind.  I am using a 5th gen iPod Video (YES I'M SURE) and running Mac OS X 10.6.8.

First, I followed the instructions at http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodConversionToFAT32
to convert my Macpod to a Winpod.  When I apply the partition table, the iPod remounts and says it is unreadable by my computer.  Should I hit 'Ignore'?

Next, RockBoxUtility can't autodetect my iPod, so I enter the information manually.  Is there a way to fix this?

When I click 'Complete Installation' the progress box says:
Error reading partition table - possibly not an Ipod

How do I fix these problems?!?!?
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Llorean on August 17, 2011, 07:18:00 AM
Which partition table file are you using?

You really shouldn't continue on to later steps when you get an error in an earlier one. Each time you encounter an error you should solve it before moving on. In other circumstances you could end up harming a device by ignoring error messages and continue to try installation.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 07:20:52 AM
Which partition table file are you using?

I'm using mbr-video30gb.bin with my iPod Video 5th Gen.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Llorean on August 17, 2011, 07:22:15 AM
How did you identify your sector size? Could you restore your iPod to working condition (with iTunes most likely) and then paste the iPodPatcher output?
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 07:27:46 AM
How did you identify your sector size?
Could you restore your iPod to working condition (with iTunes most likely) and then paste the iPodPatcher output?


This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

[INFO] Scanning disk devices...
[INFO] Read XML info (9694 bytes)
[INFO] Ipod found - Video (aka 5th Generation) ("macpod") - /dev/disk2
[INFO] Reading partition table from /dev/disk2
[INFO] Sector size is 512 bytes
[INFO] Part    Start Sector    End Sector   Size (MB)   Type
[INFO]    0              63        131134        64.0   Empty (0x00)
[INFO]    1          131136      58605111     28551.7   HFS/HFS+ (0xffff)
[INFO] Read XML info (9694 bytes)
[INFO] Ipod model: Video (aka 5th Generation) (32MB RAM) ("macpod")
[INFO] ************************************************************************
[INFO] *** WARNING FOR ROCKBOX USERS
[INFO] *** You must convert this ipod to FAT32 format (aka a "winpod")
[INFO] *** if you want to run Rockbox.  Rockbox WILL NOT work on this ipod.
[INFO] *** See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodConversionToFAT32
[INFO] ************************************************************************
Enter i to install the Rockbox bootloader, u to uninstall
 or c to cancel and do nothing (i/u/c) :
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Llorean on August 17, 2011, 07:30:33 AM
What is the exact command you type to to write the MBR?
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 07:35:09 AM
What is the exact command you type to to write the MBR?

dd if=mbr-video30gb.bin of=/dev/disk2

I got disk2 by using Disk Utility and hitting 'Info."
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Llorean on August 17, 2011, 07:38:38 AM
If your computer declares the iPod unreadable, what did you do when you were supposed to reformat it to fat32? At exactly which step did error messages start?

You may wish to redownload the MBR file and make sure it wasn't corrupted somehow.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 07:40:37 AM
Right after the MBR file is installed, my iPod reboots (disconnects and reconnects itself), and once it mounts itself, my computer says it is unreadable.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Llorean on August 17, 2011, 07:47:27 AM
What, exactly, does your computer say? Did you attempt to finish the conversion, only to have the other steps fail, or did you skip on to trying to install Rockbox with RBUtil at that point without trying to finish the conversion?
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 07:50:58 AM
I hit "ignore" and moved on to the next step: creating a main partition with the FAT32 file system...come to think of it, the error message might come after THIS step.  My mistake.  So, to create the partition, I used disk utility, selected the iPod, hit the erase tab, selected MS-DOS (FAT), and hit erase.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Llorean on August 17, 2011, 07:54:08 AM
Well, now there's even more uncertainty. Could you be precise about exactly when the error message happens, and exactly what it says? When it "might" be isn't particularly helpful here.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 07:57:19 AM
I know.  Let me try everything, installing the MBR, creating the FAT32 partition, etc. and I'll get back to you.  Thank you so much for your help so far!

Post Merge: August 17, 2011, 08:04:30 AM
Ok.  I redownloaded the MBR, opened Terminal, navigated to the folder the MBR was in, and typed
dd if=mbr-video30gb.bin of=/dev/disk2
Terminal said:
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 2.525599 secs (203 bytes/sec)

And IMMEDIATELY, there is a pop-up that says "This disk is not readable by this computer"  and I can hit initialize, ignore, and eject.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: bluebrother on August 17, 2011, 09:45:32 AM
You put a MBR to the player, but that is not sufficient. You need to properly format the data partition as well -- as one can clearly see from the ipodpatcher output it's not a winpod yet. And Rockbox Utility can't detect the Ipod for installation if it's not properly converted.

Try restoring using itunes on a windows machine, that's way simpler.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 02:31:26 PM
Where can I get my hands on one?  Hahahaha.

Post Merge: August 17, 2011, 02:51:23 PM
I tried the entire process again, ejecting and restarting with the iPod in disk mode.  I also created the partition, and ejected the iPod again.  After connecting it to the computer again, it says that my iPod is in recovery mode.  ipodpatcher says it isn't an iPod and that I don't have permissions.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: bluebrother on August 17, 2011, 03:00:50 PM
Where can I get my hands on one?  Hahahaha.

What's so funny about that? Windows is much more widespread than OS X, so getting your hands on a Windows machine is usually way easier to get your hands on an OS X machine.

I tried the entire process again, ejecting and restarting with the iPod in disk mode.  I also created the partition, and ejected the iPod again.  After connecting it to the computer again, it says that my iPod is in recovery mode.  ipodpatcher says it isn't an iPod and that I don't have permissions.

Please be more specific. How does this "don't have permissions" look like? Who says that your Ipod is in recovery mode? Do you have Itunes *shut down* (not only closed)? Did you run the dd command as root user?

I'm suspecting that Itunes is interfering with what you're doing.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 03:20:58 PM
Ok, I'm gonna run through it again, and document EVERYTHING.
I am following the instructions at http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodConversionToFAT32
I have a 5th Gen iPod Video and Mac OS X.
The iPod has been restored with iTunes, but has no media on it.  It is set to not open iTunes when the iPod attaches, and has disk use enabled.

I used ipodpatcher to find the byte-sector size:

[INFO] Scanning disk devices...
[INFO] Read XML info (9694 bytes)
[INFO] Ipod found - Video (aka 5th Generation) ("macpod") - /dev/disk1
[INFO] Reading partition table from /dev/disk1
[INFO] Sector size is 512 bytes
[INFO] Part    Start Sector    End Sector   Size (MB)   Type
[INFO]    0              63        131134        64.0   Empty (0x00)
[INFO]    1          131136      58605111     28551.7   HFS/HFS+ (0xffff)
[INFO] Read XML info (9694 bytes)
[INFO] Ipod model: Video (aka 5th Generation) (32MB RAM) ("macpod")
[INFO] ************************************************************************
[INFO] *** WARNING FOR ROCKBOX USERS
[INFO] *** You must convert this ipod to FAT32 format (aka a "winpod")
[INFO] *** if you want to run Rockbox.  Rockbox WILL NOT work on this ipod.
[INFO] *** See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodConversionToFAT32
[INFO] ************************************************************************
Enter i to install the Rockbox bootloader, u to uninstall
 or c to cancel and do nothing (i/u/c) :c
Press ENTER to exit ipodpatcher :ENTER
logout

I download the 512-byte sector mbr file called mbr-video30gb.bin from http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodConversionToFAT32

I use Terminal to navigate to the location where I stored the mbr (I have omitted most of the files in the folder for simplicity:
Blakes-Computer-4:~ kibblesnbits$ cd /Applications
Blakes-Computer-4:Applications kibblesnbits$ ls
   mbr-video30gb.bin
Then I unmount the iPod and run dd if=mbr-xxxx.bin of=/dev/diskN, where xxxx is the name of the mbr and diskN is the disk name of the iPod, found using Disk Utility:

Blakes-Computer-4:Applications kibblesnbits$ dd if=mbr-video30gb.bin of=/dev/disk1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes transferred in 0.032464 secs (15771 bytes/sec)

Now I use Disk Utility, select the disk called "30.01 GB Apple iPod Media," select Erase, use the drop-down menu to select "MS-DOS (FAT)," rename it IPOD, and hit Erase.  Here is Disk Utility's log:
2011-08-17 12:14:23 -0700:
   Name :    Apple iPod Media
   Type :    Disk

   Partition Map Scheme :    Apple Partition Map
   Disk Identifier :    disk1
   Media Name :    Apple iPod Media
   Media Type :    iPod
   Connection Bus :    USB
   USB Serial Number :    000A270014EEF960
   Device Tree :    IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/USB7@1D,7
   Writable :    Yes
   Ejectable :    Yes
   Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed :    No
   Location :    External
   Total Capacity :    30.01 GB (30,005,821,440 Bytes)
   S.M.A.R.T. Status :    Not Supported
   Disk Number :    1
   Partition Number :    0


2011-08-17 12:15:03 -0700: Unmount of “IPOD” succeeded
2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700: Preparing to erase : “IPOD”
2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700:    Partition Scheme: Master Boot Record
2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700:    1 volume will be created
2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700:       Name      : “IPOD”
2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700:       Size      : 30.01 GB
2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700:       Filesystem   : MS-DOS (FAT)

2011-08-17 12:18:04 -0700: Unmounting disk
2011-08-17 12:18:06 -0700: Creating partition map
2011-08-17 12:18:07 -0700: Waiting for disks to reappear
2011-08-17 12:18:07 -0700: Formatting disk1s1 as MS-DOS (FAT) with name IPOD
2011-08-17 12:18:07 -0700: 512 bytes per physical sector
/dev/rdisk1s1: 58576416 sectors in 1830513 FAT32 clusters (16384 bytes/cluster)
bps=512 spc=32 res=32 nft=2 mid=0xf0 spt=32 hds=255 hid=0 bsec=58605057 bspf=14301 rdcl=2 infs=1 bkbs=6

2011-08-17 12:18:07 -0700: Mounting disk
2011-08-17 12:18:08 -0700: Erase complete.
2011-08-17 12:18:08 -0700:

Now, I check the format of the disk, and Disk Utility says FAT32.

Now, I'm going to follow the instructions found at http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-ipodvideo/rockbox-buildch2.html#x4-60002

I quit iTunes and open Rockbox.  I click change to change the device and hit AutoDetect; it says "Could not detect a device.
Select your device and Mountpoint manually."
I browse to Volumes/IPOD and select Ipod Video (5th gen) (Stable) and click Ok.
I click Complete Installation and click OK.
The Progress Box says "Error reading partition table - possibly not an Ipod"

And I'm done.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: gevaerts on August 17, 2011, 04:50:22 PM
From your disk utility log:

Code: [Select]
Partition Map Scheme :    Apple Partition Map
That's not going to work.
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: torne on August 17, 2011, 04:59:26 PM
You are formatting the entire disk; you need to only format the data partition, and leave the rest of the disk alone. You want to format /dev/disk1s2, not the whole of /dev/disk1. Restore it in iTunes (to reinstall the contents of the hidden firmware partition) then start over and select just the partition in disk utility. If you can't work out how to do that (I don't know how to use it, don't have a mac) then you should be able to do it from the command line with "newfs_msdos -F32 -v iPod /dev/disk1s2".
Title: Re: A Million Installation Problems...
Post by: Kibbles0515 on August 17, 2011, 05:41:32 PM
From your disk utility log:

Code: [Select]
Partition Map Scheme :    Apple Partition Map
That's not going to work.

Thanks for you help?
You are formatting the entire disk; you need to only format the data partition, and leave the rest of the disk alone. You want to format /dev/disk1s2, not the whole of /dev/disk1. Restore it in iTunes (to reinstall the contents of the hidden firmware partition) then start over and select just the partition in disk utility. If you can't work out how to do that (I don't know how to use it, don't have a mac) then you should be able to do it from the command line with "newfs_msdos -F32 -v iPod /dev/disk1s2".


I thought that might be a problem!  I wasn't sure which to click.  Thanks!  I'll try again...

Post Merge: August 17, 2011, 05:54:25 PM
Damn.  Things were going to well, too.  RockBox even auto-identified my iPod.  I clicked on Complete Installation in Rockbox, and THIS time it said:
Downloading bootloader file
Download finished
Installing rockbox bootloader
Could not open Ipod in R/W mode

I assume that R/W means Read/Write, which means my permissions aren't correct.  But I did all this with Admin access...solutions?

Post Merge: August 17, 2011, 05:58:20 PM
Nevermind, I tried it again and everything seems to be working fine!  I'm just waiting for RockBox to finish!  Thanks to EVERYONE for your help!  I'll be sure to post again if something new goes wrong!